Best Skulking Poems
Skulking between the thinning clumps
Of tattered sedge
A balding coot despondently calls,
Scratching Blackbirds scutter deeply
Into a Hawthorn hedge;
Whilst, creeping stealthily,
Gathering darkness onwardly crawls.
The blackened Moorhen washes the clinging
Soot from his feathered form,
Rising above the mirrored pond in awkward
flight.
Gathering clouds mumble softly of an
Impending storm,
When, silently menacing, inwards marches
The approaching night.
Listening intently, between murmurs upon
A breeze,
I check my step and briefly pause -
To catch a low sigh whispered from among
The sullen trees...
A last desperate plead of their lost cause.
For now billowing cumulonimbus sags
And begs to stall,
As, slowly homeward bound, I gather
About me to hastily make;
Where, circling high in rushing element,
The ragged Buzzard begins to fall...
Upon Heavens gathered Furies -
That so conspire to thunderously break!
What pushes my pen in this whimsical notch of the world?
Something whispers to me like an elder dream....
and the trees hang arbored 'oer a little stream of sea,
the feathered folk flit and flute,
and sip the may-season rill;
Where sun has finally come dipping like a diamond.....
I am measured to this mighty moment found;
and there is holly even in the most forgotten shade,
though royal (even) ----- with garland diadems made
It would seem the angels have foretold this:
to not forget the most beauteous of days;
with proud hours honeyed,
the long-loving minute endures in thy heart,
and remembers the kiss of legends
despite realms of sadness and dark,
the withered wind which blows old upon the sad hills....
too ancient for wise men; for in youth how pink the heart
and varied, new struggles are many -----
yet plain with simple solutions
Mercy hath not a mind for memory....
swift its song, its house clean of enemies lurking,
no bogey-man skulking the midnite hour,
no roving-a-wraith scratching the old attic boards;
Forgiveness sleeps in the quiet wood,
and wakes with whispers of faith,
with the ease of nestled lambs and recollected days;
What poor tragedy to fret with dark remembrance,
to furl hades in the denizens of thy heart ----
black-tongued as the devil in his den!
What fool would prefer a scowl to a smile?
enemies come and go.....
friends come and remain,
when the house is quiet with memories....
of youth and adventure in the old daydream glass;
more precious the ancient hours
and parched the pages of first chapters,
first beginnings, first faces in the ripples of time's pond;
They took my blood and ethnic group, they did.
My soul was skulking, knowing of the strains
If I have no visa, they’ll get mad
Reading my thick newspaper was sad
Seeing they’re deporting love again
They took my blood ,my heart and I feel bad
Water has no salt whereas blood has
And losing it will cause a lot of pain
If we have no visas, oh dear God.
The water circulates; we’re effing dead
So when we’re shot there’s no red blood to stain
They looked for human souls and then they bragged
The Jews, the gays the helpless .felt cold dread
And who resists now Fascism rides again?
We scream when we’re asleep,oh helpless God.
We invented torture , prison, shame
Were God here he’d hear the frightened groans
They took my ethnic group and stole my blood
Now they call me ” ”, ain’t life sad?
Where the antelope used to play is now shopping malls and plats.
Man in his insatiable greed has encroached upon its ancient habitats.
Not so very long ago on the plains just a few miles out of town,
Were herds of these graceful creatures that now have dwindled down.
Also, pushed from the verdant plains are the mighty buffalo,
That grazed upon the lush, green grasses not so very long ago.
Upon these sacred grazing grounds are now concrete parking lots,
And densely cluttered cookie-cutter houses on quarter-acre plots.
Where have all the magnificent wild turkeys gone,
That used to preen and strut about at the break of dawn?
Even the lowly prairie dogs, their burrows they've had to flee,
To accommodate covetous developers who've gone on a building spree.
Of the wily fox and skulking coyote, there are fewer to be seen.
They were forced from their hunting grounds and have fled the scene.
Desperate flocks of grouse and pheasant have also taken flight,
To raise their young elsewhere, escaping mans' spreading blight.
Deer and elk that once peered shyly from almost every copse;
Their environs now occupied and overrun with tacky shops.
'Twould be novel if man would recall that these creatures were here first,
And consider them when pursuing their unquenchable expansion thirst!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired (© All Rights Reserved)
The tiger traces, through it's jungle home,
His prey he chases, just then, the crackle of bone.
Sleekly stalking, through shadow of tree,
His prey just skulking, oblivious, carefree.
Nostrils twitching, green eyes shining,
Pupils dilating and paw's barbs refining.
Lips pulled back, canines showing,
It's the Tiger's tact, saliva flowing.
Such a wonderful creature, watched in awe,
Marvelous features, a strong, crushing jaw.
Watching his hunting in divinest anguish and rapturous pain,
In this death we should not languish, the creature that was slain.
I suppose that's just nature, the way of the world,
Just stay form the Tiger's abature, lest his claws would be unfurled.
Skulking - lurks an unseen shadow
chilling both the heart and marrow
destiny - your dust of sorrow
Death, where are you
Nurturing an endless grudge
at life’s end the gentle nudge
of darkness’ - god forsaken judge
Death, where are you
Breathless creature littered path
a trail of tears your aftermath
cold hallowed wail of livings wrath
Death, where are you
My pain beseeches you dear death
free these emotions, suppress my breath
beneath your cloak let me forget
Death, where are you
©4/29/2018
submitted to – Rhyme and Refrain – Poetry Contest
sponsor – Broken Wings
As The Rising Sun, The Dawn Came In Softly & Slowly;
&
So Did My Suffering.
Maybe Unexplained Or Unexpected Feelings;
Which Have Been Ignored;
A Sudden Melancholy Skulking In The Silence;
Awaiting The Arrival Of This Day.
The Days Have Regrettably Passed Since We Parted Ways;
About 4 Years Ago, & I Now Wonder If There Was Anything I Could Have Done;
I May Not Have Needed To Spend As Much Time In The Closet;
I Probably Need To Have Paid Closer Attention To How You Felt About Being Anonymous;
Or;
To Anything Else That Would Have Kept You By My Side;
I Am Sorely Missing You Right Now.
My Thoughts Are Hitting Barriers, & My Tears Are Falling Like Waterfalls;
All With Photographs Of You;
Including Your Wild Hairstyles;
Wild Kissing Technique;
All-Gleaming Beard;
Lovely Eyes;
Beautiful Voice;
Undetectable Abs;
&
Silly Smiles.
The Monotonous Music You Listened To In Your Place;
I Can Still Hear Them Playing In My Head From When I Visited;
I Still Occasionally Hear Them In My Brain;
Which Is Shocking, But I Genuinely Miss You & Those Awful Songs.
It is the laziest of all creatures,
It could eat and eat filet all the day long.
Investigative eyes is a feature,
And it will sing to you its forlorn song.
It will avoid you like the plague by day,
Skulking, running, bounding, from room to room.
By night it searches through the halls for its prey,
The hunted will meet its impending doom.
The whisper of whiskers against the door,
Tip-toe, pitter-patter, sneakily creeps.
All at once bounding across the floor,
Whoosh goes the paw across the mouse hole deep.
“Drat!” says the cat, missed the mark once again,
Once more the mouse hunt will have to begin.
From the year of Eighteen ninety,
survives a sad birthday tale.
As told by Private John Burnett,
eighty years old when it was told.
Of needless deaths of Cherokee,
inflicted by relocation.
In Eighteen hundred thirty eight,
President Jackson did decree,
all the Cherokee must move west,
and give up their lands to white men.
Even though he, Junaluska,
had saved Jackson’s life in battle.
On chill morning of October,
six hundred forty five wagons,
took the twelve thousand Indians.
Chief John Ross led all in prayer.
They were literate, Christians all,
with written language, newspaper,
and Constitution like our form.
Morning, November seventeen,
terrible storm of sleet and snow.
No fire to warm the ground below.
Dying of pneumonia from the cold,
a trail of death, four thousand souls.
Heart wrenching grief for those alive.
Eighteen ninety, still near the deed.
Too near for young people to know,
the enormity of the crime.
“Murder is murder however,
or whomever perpetrated.
By the villain skulking at night,
or to martial music by day.”
“Murder is murder and who answers.
Who must explain the streams of blood,
flowing through Indian country.
Who will mourn the four thousand graves,
which silently are trail markers.
I wish I could forget it all.
Thus ends my birthday story here.”
Based on a true record of John Burnett’s story of his life with
the Cherokee and his accompaniment on “The Trail of Tears”.
© May 14 2010 For Deborah’s” theme of western movement” contest
I see you creeping in the night
Ephemeral spirit that haunts my darkness
And lurks within my shadow
A silent whisper in my ear
Cast your lot with me,
And see the riches I will adorn thee with
I see you skulking in the morning light
Ephemeral spirit that haunts my day
It’s harder to see you in the blackness of my shadow
But I can hear your distant whisper
Join my legions,
And enjoy the camaraderie of kindred spirits
I tell you, I am but a solitary man
Capable of withstanding the allure
My rewards will come through enlightenment
And not from a whisper
I sit at my bench again,
this whole scene is getting old.
Same old sinners skulking in,
same defense a trillion-fold.
Next the room fills up with steam,
then flames shoot up through the grate.
I'm so bored I want to scream.
Now the part I really hate...
Blah, blah, blah, "I beg you, sir,"
"Tell Him there's been a mistake..."
Ugh - stop drooling on my fur!
YOU'LL be burning at the stake.
I've been doing this so long,
I forgot when it began.
Sentencing the endless throng
of the very worst of man.
NEXT...!
Come on, don't hold the line,
I've got legions more to see.
Quicksand. Sharks. Nice white strychnine.
Punishment is up to me.
Used to be I really dug
civic aspects of this job,
now I just want to unplug
from this whole unholy mob.
What if men just acted right?
What if more went UP, than down?
Maybe I'd take off a night,
or perhaps go out of town...
Wait - did I just HAVE that thought??
Oh my goodness, I'm not well...
Feel my head - am I still hot?
Guess there ARE cold days in hell!
==================
07/29/2015
============================
I sit at my bench again,
this whole scene is getting old.
Same old sinners skulking in,
same defense a trillion-fold.
Now the room fills up with steam.
Next, flames shoot up through the grate.
I'm so bored I want to scream!
Here's the part I really hate...
Blah, blah, blah, "I beg you, sir,"
"Tell Him there's been a mistake..."
Ugh! Stop drooling on my fur!
YOU'LL be burning at the stake.
I've been doing this so long,
I forgot when it began.
Sentencing the endless throng
of the very worst of man.
NEXT...! Let's go - don't hold the line,
I've got legions more to see.
Quicksand. Sharks. Irate canine...
Punishment is up to me.
Used to be I really dug
civic aspects of this job,
now I just want to unplug
from this whole unholy mob.
What if men just acted right?
What if more went UP, than down?
Maybe I'd take off a night...
or perhaps go out of town...
Wait - did I just have that thought?
Oh my badness, I'm not well...
Feel my head - am I still hot?!
...Guess there ARE cold days in hell!
============================
If I were to swagger off the streets
Some gangster as I perched the skulduggery
Of my litany in glitter and smoke
An ageless vandalism to linger unknown
While I sneer from the lounging corner of your TV
Would you recognise me
Though I slide sheathed in the flags and banners
Barking and whining with the malaise dogs of freedom
Still with the coils of bright subliminal stars
With the cool smoothing glass of my poison
Throttle every whisper in the eyes of your children
Would you know me
Should I sink in bitter teeth this Nospheratu gift
A mechanical mayhem of guts and blood
In impassioned exaltation choke the anthems of liberty
Should I scream dank from the cellar
Beneath the rubble litter of such celebrated and hollow victory
Would you hear me
When I dally in the mall smile Muzak ghost of neon
And peddle from every crisp clean rotting shelf of starvation
By coat-hanger noose dangled so footloose
Breathes it’s monoxide pull into your lungs
Better for the fashion this fashionable becomes
Do you recognise me now
As I secretive polished in slick glide reflective coercion
In the vaunted line of the halls of my fathers
Where this iniquitous trail of fiddling crumbs
Lay their poor morsel under the boot of my banquet table
I dine on metal and speak with weapons
And faceless electronic the vendetta of surveillance
And twisted media to quell every utterance
I hide this honed blade skulking behind you
Chill grip to the spine in bright sunshine
I haunt you
You ….. photographed
Are ….. stamped, filed
Mine ….. and numbered
Straight rows of soft chairs, larval eyes stare blank
Absorbed by glowing colors on the wall
Their jaws slack, fetid whiff, unwashed and dank
Arrested minds the blue screen does enthrall
Their horticulture, growing docile strains
Indulge the twisted whims our lords conceive
The whores to culture, placid in their chains
Reclining prostrate, ready to believe
Our nation’s spirit sinking to expire
Omniscient demigods behind the screen
Transmuting our light to synthetic ire
Red, white, and blue bows to red, blue and green
Unconscious fulcrum, force you can’t deny
Black keys in gray hands of the puppet priest
Subliminal, no chance to wonder why
Clandestine reins pulled taut, they lead the beast
Imbue the symbol with gilt qualities
Admire how they conspire, our life rewired
Such dazzling tricks to blind the polity
In breaded, cheap amusements, we are mired
Our brave new virtual reality
With hidden craft, untruth is overlayed
Eclipsed sun darkens to totality
Beneath benighted noon we walk as day
Predicted, instinct’s base reaction known
To tidal waves of violence and sex
Minds titillated by distraction’s bone
From our Media-Government Complex
Our internecine hatreds stoked, inflamed
Creating and enhancing the divide
True culprits are protected, victims blamed
Incessant war, the great rift yawning wide
Unseemly freedoms have been made taboo
Renouncing power, most don’t even grieve
Relieved to give up guns and money too
Behind red tape and laws lurk skulking thieves
Resounding echoes, our once great New World
Through wavelengths, diodes, context redefined
Cold software guiding social plots unfurled
Far colder people fine-tune the hive mind
Inheritors of might presume the role
Unburdened by the ballast of remorse
Their dark ascent to power and control
Soul-searing wind as you climb to the source
Some zealots hold that this is Satan’s world
Each object of desire imbued with blight
Much clearer when the plan becomes unfurled
So glaring it becomes they have the right
This morbid monolith, our freedom’s bane
Temptation steals your breath, you’d best beware
Choose reason in a world that’s gone insane
Reclaim your only soul and say a prayer
© Thomas W. Quigley
7/17/16
Mostly Iambic Pentameter
I will stand with mighty pen in hand,
the pen like a sharp sword drawn, waiting
to pierce calloused shell, inadequate armor of the soulless...
a crimson tide washes up on snow white sands,
flowing on a blank page as normal melds with the strange,
my truth, your truth, many truths in a world of lies.
Do not despise what you do not understand.
We each have our own voice...
Rise, stand with your sword drawn!
Even when the cold breath of censorship breathes
down your neck, chilling the bone, watching,
tainting the well, stand alone!
I will stand and fight for my love.
I will kiss every word with tender lips.
I will caress the lines and spaces,
all have found a home, reaching for stars,
united, preserved for time - yours and mine.
Indifference is a malignancy, insidious and destructive.
Our mute voices may one day cry out in vain - too late...
Censors be damned!
All who slash with red pen, all who write with invisible ink,
all who destroy behind the walls of their decency -
they are the cowards who choose to condemn.
Here and now, take a stand!
Next, your words will fall prey to the thief -
skulking, stalking, attacking, stealing -
in the dead of night, taking all you cherish.
May our words live to tell.
May we never hide.
To stand or fall? Make a choice, decide!
Written for the Stand Contest on September 12, 2012